 "Ashwani Lohani")
Air India’s chairman and managing director (CMD), Ashwani Lohani, has ordered an enquiry against a pilot who refused to fly without his preferred co-pilot.
Sources say Indian Commercial Pilots Association (ICPA), one of the staff unions in the state-owned carrier, had complained earlier to the management in this regard.
“For several months, the pilot has been operating the maximum number of flights with one particular first officer. We would like to know the reason behind this sort of arrangement being extended to one particular pilot,” the letter said. This newspaper has seen a copy of the letter. ICPA is the union of the erstwhile Indian Airlines pilots, with a little more than 600 members.
Around 110 passengers were kept waiting for two and a half hours inside the aircraft, which was flying from Chennai to Male. “The airline has suffered enough because of such stray and repeated cases of indiscipline. The company will neither condone nor tolerate such acts. I have directed all such cases be brought to my notice immediately and strict action to be taken,” Lohani said.
The CMD had previously faced an ICPA strike threat against a decision to bar pilots from forming unions.
Lohani has been stern in earlier disciplinary cases. On March 31, a pilot disappeared from Delhi aiport half an hour before he was to fly. The aircraft was to operate on the Mumbai-Bhopal route and was delayed as AI had to manage an alternative crew. Lohani quickly suspended the senior commander. “No act of indiscipline will be tolerated and action will be fast and swift against such acts,” he told Business Standard.
“We have no complaints against action taken for disciplinary action if there is no victimisation in these steps,” said a senior member of ICPA.
According to data from the Directorate General of Civil Aviation, the airline has the highest number of passenger complaints among national carriers.
